Black Screen when running Media Portal (1 Viewer)

[Marvin Miller]

I think I did run all the DXDiag tests - I'll try them again. Good eye, BTW!
In the meantime, I installed the new folder and tried again. Same deal, I'm afraid. Attached is latest log...[DOUBLEPOST=1459120103][/DOUBLEPOST]Update, I do get an error from DXdiag;

Error: Problem getting extra sound info ?

 

[mm1352000]

Hmmm. Same error in the log. Can you zip and attach your folder for me to check again please?

The other thing you can do while I'm checking your folder would be to download Dependency Walker and check whether it complains about any of Direct3DX.dll's dependencies.
http://www.dependencywalker.com/

I think you'd use the 32 bit (x86) version even for your 64 bit version of Windows because MP is 32 bit.

...and actually that may explain why replacing is not working. Are you 100% certain that there are no Microsoft.DirectX.Direct3DX.dll files outside c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET? I'm just wondering if they're linked/doubled by WOW64 for 32 bit and 64 bit app dual compatibility.

 

[Marvin Miller]

Sure can, you can find them here;

http://www.cbr125world.com/DirectXforManagedCode2.zip

Which Dependency Walker should I run? IA64 or x64?

I did a system-wide search of the Windows directory for Direct3DX.dll and the directory we are working with is the only one that come up.

I don't want to take up too much of your time seeing this is a end-user issue (as opposed to MP). When searching MS for steps on re-installing DirectX the link took me to the Windows 10 Upgrade screen

 

[mm1352000]

Which Dependency Walker should I run? IA64 or x64?

Like I said: I think x86 version, not either of the ones you mentioned.

 

[mm1352000]

All the files look okay now, so I'm not sure what is wrong. If you haven't already done so, I'd suggest a reboot and retry. Beyond that the options are further investigation via DW, DirectX/.NET reinstallation (if you can figure out how), or I guess you may be forced into a Windows update or reinstall.

 

[Marvin Miller]

Hmmm....when I run it I'm seeing some pretty odd errors when running dependency walker. I'm thinking of doing a (gasp) repair installation. Something is borked on this end (I thought it was a dead-clean install but perhaps I'm thinking of another machine).[DOUBLEPOST=1459121680][/DOUBLEPOST]I think we're thinking along the same lines (see my post above about .5 seconds before yours by the looks of it). Let me try a repair install just for kicks but I suspect I'll end up in Windows 10 ville in short order....

Many thanks for your help in pinning this thing down to an issue on this end! I will post back once it's resolved even if it's just so that you know we cased it!

 

[Marvin Miller]

One question comes to mind....how do you handle file metadata in Media Portal ?

With MCE we have WTV which means we have a lot of metadata associated with the file. Is this also possible with MP ?

 

[mm1352000]

One question comes to mind....how do you handle file metadata in Media Portal ?

That's a very big question, and the answer varies depending on the file type and any plugins you might end up using. Due to the scope of the question, I don't feel able to give an adequate answer.

With MCE we have WTV which means we have a lot of metadata associated with the file. Is this also possible with MP ?

Well, WTV are only used for WMC recordings, but if your question is about recording files and meta-data...

MediaPortal's TV Server recordings are .TS (MPEG 2 transport stream) files like most other non-proprietary TV applications.

Like WTV, the TS format is a container format (which means that the internal content format/encoding - eg. MPEG 2, h.264 - can vary widely). The contents of a TV Server recording includes all the channel's video, audio, sub-titles and teletext stream(s) as received without any re-encoding. There's no meta-data at present because there's no cross-application-standard way of storing meta-data with a TS file.

Unlike WTV, TS files are very widely supported by hardware and software players as well as editors.

Recording meta-data is stored in two places:

1. The TV Server proprietary-format database.
   
2. A separate XML file in the same directory as the TS file.

The database is used to populate the views in MediaPortal (eg. recordings by channel, program, date). WMC probably has something similar.
The XML files are to enable cross-compatibility with other programs. They're just structured text files, which means you can open and edit them in any text editor (eg. notepad, wordpad, word). Developers can also easily write code to ingest the contents of the file.

 

[Marvin Miller]

With MCE all the files have the metadata in the container so if you look at one with, for example, Windows Media Player it will give you the episode name/title and the program description etc. In my case, I usually use Media Player to watch shows remotely. I'm guessing with Media Portal I would use the client and that, in that case, it will have all the same data showing anyway.

I think I'm just going to have to try it in order to really experience it and understand it.

The Windows 10 download is almost done. It's scary to change to a new O/S after so much time - especially one designed to spy on it's victim

 

[mm1352000]

With MCE all the files have the metadata in the container so if you look at one with, for example, Windows Media Player it will give you the episode name/title and the program description etc.

Yes, I understand. However this mostly only works if you stay with MS programs. Other programs won't recognise the meta-data even though it's there.

In my case, I usually use Media Player to watch shows remotely. I'm guessing with Media Portal I would use the client and that, in that case, it will have all the same data showing anyway.

Yes, you'd use MediaPortal (ie. the front end) instead of WMP. MediaPortal would connect to the back end TV Server - whether that TV Server service is installed/running on the same PC or another PC connected to your network - and retrieve the available meta-data that way.

I think I'm just going to have to try it in order to really experience it and understand it.

Yes [again! ] - I'd strongly recommend trying before going all in. This is another reason why I was previously advocating to stay with W7 if you could. That way if you don't like what you find, you haven't lost anything.